The Fortune Teller

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the artwork is in public domain
Mine was predestined, you see. Summer school break lasted three moths; in early June grandmother Embroideress and i would board the train to the old country, carrying the provisions in wicker food baskets. The journey across former Austro-Hungarian Empire would take two days and we would have at least two main meals and five or six snacks until we would reach its once North-West border and the former Duchy where she was from.
Preparing the baskets beforehand was time consuming and would take considerable amount of logistics – breaded chicken, meatballs stuffed with eggs, sourdough bouls, fluffy crescents and wafer cake cut into bite size pieces would be wrapped in foil and placed in the basket alongside plaid cloths, plastic glasses and sour apple juice in thick green bottles; these elaborated movable feasts were the highlight of the journey.
I would be mostly reading and napping until the train reached Hungarian border and busy customs officers rushed through the compartments greeting travelers Jó napot kívánok while quickly scanning their passports; soon after that, the bulging train would depart making plethora of noises – roaring, squealing and honking- as if it was kvetching about the heavy burden that had befallen it…

And then the prairie would open – the fertile rolling lowland of Pannonian Plain with its forest ridges and endless dithering wheat fields, carried by the wind like sea waves.
There used to be a sea here once upon a time and poets still lamented of being like lost sailors trapped in the corn fields and what a disgrace it was to lose not a ship, but the whole sea.
In the villages, the main street in which houses were leaning against each other, connected by a thick greasepaint line at the bottom – would inevitably be named after Marshall Tito. The grandmother’s house stood just across the street from the tall white church with belfry – the pigeons’ dwelling on the top;
every time the bells rung, calling the believers to pray, a flock of flustered pigeons would get on the run, waiving their wings hastily.
You first needed to unlock the wooden gate with a horseshoe nailed on it for luck and protection and then turn right to the big house, which main room was the spacious kitchen occupying the mezzanine.
On the first floor were the bedrooms with tall iron beds covered by duvets stuffed with goose feathers and big pillows sewn from damask silk, during the night, feathers would stick out from the covers and pillows and would pinch and tickle the sleeper’s bear skin inducing them with vivid dreams.
The books were everywhere, all kinds of books – encyclopedias, collected works of classical writers, cook books, monographs, history books – arranged on shelves, coffee tables, bedside stands and even on the floor; it’s here where the books were kept, as the family moved across the globe.
The heavy wooden chest kept starched tablecloths, embroidered linen and vintage handkerchiefs, all carefully ironed, folded and arranged so that their edges would form a straight line, with lavender pouches spread randomly between them.
The whitewashed walls were decorated with hunting tapestries, windows covered with crocheted curtains, dozens of porcelain dolls were sitting on velvet chairs and the whole atmosphere was that of an antique shop, it felt as if the time had stopped there.
Drinking water was brought from the nearby well in painted tin cans and in the backyard was a tiny basin that harvested rainwater used for laundry and bathing.
Grandmother despised industrial soaps and washing liquids and made what we needed on her own – the soap was made of wood ashes, the hair washed with yolk and brandy and the skin treated with lotion made of egg-shells and lemon.
The food was made from scratch and cooked on a wood stove, the baths were taken in a barrel and the books read under the flickering light of kerosene oil lamps.
Soon after our arrival, cousins and neighbors would start arriving, carrying the gifts – eggs that were freshly laid, milk that was still warm from milking, apples just picked from the orchard and manually ground coffee that smelled divinely.
The water would be measured carefully with small coffee cup, poured to cezve – copper pot with a long wooden handle – and placed on the stove.
Then the hostess would inquire about sugar preferences – most took it with one dessert spoon of sugar, that was considered medium, few would like their sweeter or – without any sugar, those had to be made separately. After the sugared water would boil, cezve was removed from the stove and some of the water, approximately half of the small ceramic cup, set aside for later use. Then coffee would be added – two level dessert spoon per cup – and cezve would be brought back to stove; after the thick liquid would boil once again and would start to raise, the coffee was ready – it only needed to be poured over with that remaining water, which made the residue fall into its place… and that you needed so you could actually read the cups.
The coffee was enjoyed slowly, sipped on, well water was poured into crystal glasses and and some honey or home made jam was served in small plates and on crocheted doilies.
The community’s news would be exchanged – who was getting married, who had a baby and who was no longer with us; there were always weddings and funerals to attend and presents or words of condolence were carefully chosen in advance.
After the last sip, when only the thick residue remained on the bottom, the coffee cup would be shaken several times and turned over the saucer; it would sit like that for at least ten minutes so the residue would form the figures and dry.
And then the magic would began.
Grandmother Embrodieress was held in high respect for her reading skills, it’s only years later that i would understand she was clairvoyant.
She could tell the past and future too and her readings were amazingly accurate. She never went to great lengths to explain herself – who thought her to do so, did she think it morally right, was she entitled to this knowledge… she saw things and she told them as she saw them, that was it.
There were neither preset meanings nor rules of reading – and ‘reading’ is not the word we use in our language, for us it is “seeing”, because that’s what she was doing, she was… Scrying.
Toddlers were given sips of coffee from their grandmother’s saucers, you would become a formed coffee-drinker with set preferences by the age of twelve. When a girl was capable of making a decent coffee herself, she was said to be ready for marriage – usually aged fifteen or sixteen, albeit normally they waited until eighteen and meanwhile panned out their coffee cooking skills.
I knew love spells could be made by adding a drop of menstrual blood to the coffee, and illnesses could be cured and evil eye casted, but i never saw my grandmother doing anything like that.
She would gaze at the coffee residue and she would say things – and hers were pretty succinct instructions on what’s preferably done and what isn’t, and she saw things unexpected, that she had no way of knowing.
I have no idea how they figured out who could be the next talent – but while not all girls were passed the coffee cups to read, i was.
Out of grandmother’s Embrodieress two daughters, three granddaughters and numerous cousins and nieces, it seemed i was the only one who could see stuff, albeit myself i didn’t know how.
I would be passed a coffee cup, i’d start scrying, soon figures made of residue would start talking to me and telling me their stories – it was rather simple, you see.
And soon it would turn out that my readings were accurate too.
Copyright©20012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

Devil, the fear of freedom of choice

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from Montenegrin Independent Magazine " Vijesti "
Here is my long promised interview with Montenegrin Independent Newspaper “Vijesti”

WORDS DO HAVE POWER

Collection of poetry by Lene Ruth Stefanovic “Devil, an unauthorized biography”, was launched last week at Winter Book Fair. Published by OKF, this project is multimedial -the book comes with Tarot cards created by Spanish artist Francisco J. Campos.

The mere appearance of the cards indicates that between the covers of this book are esoteric and mystical poems which can be read not only as poetical verses, but also as an experience of the reality and the everyday life.

Q: After having published two collections of short stories, you are publishing collection “Devil, an unauthorized biography.” Could you explain who is the Devil and is this unauthorized biography of his – in fact biography of a man?

A: ” The title itself is a play on words and an allusion at the book of Yehuda Berg, ‘Devil, an authorized biography.’ Rabbi Berg – regardless of controversies surrounding the work of his school of Kabbalah – last ten years or so is inevitably included in the The New York Times lists of most influential rabbis – and he is listed somewhere close to the top of the list.
He is continuing the lineage of his father, Rav Berg, who was the first in history to spread the wisdom of Torah, Talmud and Zohar out of the closed circle of adepts and very religious Jews – and i think he fairly succeeded in that.

Bergs start from the idea that Light, kabbalistic euphemism for the Creator, can take care of itself and that there is no need to hide such knowledge – there is some kind of natural selection, those who need it will approach it and will be given the desire to endure, while the rest will give up and get themselves busy with something else.

And so we come to the Devil, who does not exist. If he existed – the theological premise of the omnipotent Creator would be proved false. We like to blame others, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden blamed each other and the snake at the end… that’s the fear of taking responsibility, the fear of the freedom of choice; that’s identification with one’s doubts and uncertainty, which, summa sumarum, kabbalists named ‘Devil’.

Q: This collection has religious, mystical and esoteric motives. Do you actually believe that the reality and life itself are based on those? And, given that along with poems you are gifting genuine Tarot cards, how does one read poetry via Tarot?

A: I think that with this very match we get the so-called ‘language of the birds’… Let’s go back to the sacral origins of the poetry. One of the most mystical philosophers, Rene Guenon, knowledgeable equally in Kabbalah and Sufism, had noted that Latin ‘carmina’ (verse) is identical to Sanskrit word ‘karma’, while the poet himself is divinely inspired interpreter of a sacral language. Later ‘vates’, prophet, becomes fortune-teller,‘adivino’ – the seer, while ‘carmen’ becomes ‘enchantment’ – the magical act itself and a very special state of being.

Under superstitions (superstitio) is easily filed that which is not understood; but etymologically,’quod superstat’ is that which outlives itself, in a word ‘the dead letter’.
Guenon emphasized that the Spirit, which can breathe wherever it wants and whenever it likes to do so, can resurrect dead symbols and rites, while empowering them in the process with the previously lost meaning.
The use, with such an intent, of the union of a verse and a ritual image, to me is unsurpassed; let’s say that in that way we are given back some power, which – in its turn – empowers the word itself to the extent that it’s capable of creating worlds.

Q: On Montenegrin contemporary literature scene there is a tendency to be particularly proud of women’s writing; what do you think of that? Does gender matter and did women really create that poetical boom?

A: I have to answer your question – with a question: tell me, who of the world’s most known and most awarded poets – ever since we are , luckily, over the rhyme – who of them would hesitate to authorize poems “The Skill” and “The Silence” by Dragana Tripkovic?

Who of the most famous Japanese masters of Haiku would hesitate to sign any of the verses by Tanja Bakic?
To me, those gender issues are a politically correct idiocies; there is good poetry and bad poetry (and prose too), not men’s and women’s.
Jelena Nelevic-Martinovic said it the best:

“ I am neither the size of my hips,

nor the measurements of my breast,

I am not the color of my eyes

neither am i the perfect ratio

between inches and pounds…

The difference is that I is the one who penetrates,

While off me all the things bounce of.”

In Mandarin, for example, there is no gender, so when you are reading poetry you can’t know whether it was written by a man to a woman, by a woman – to another woman, or by a man for another man; i think it’s the best way because the feelings, those worthy of poetry, are – universal and indivisible, as are, after all, the wisdom itself, the stupidity – as well as, at the end of things, the skill.

Our girls are awesome and they choose the way less traveled – the way of the verse. The latter is praiseworthy because it is way more easy and profitable to type some cheap prose imbued with stereotypical characters, unimaginative plot and predictable ending. Great personal courage is needed for any poetical expression, and particularly for the kind that’s close to hearts of our contemporary poetesses.

It was Sylvia Plath who, so to say, broke the ice when it comes to ‘confessional poetry’ – poetry that’s private, intimate, internal. Our poetesses write in first person singular. There are no wood-screens made of fictitious characters, words are scarce and polished like diamonds, alchemically processed in one’s own being and filtered through the prism of personal experience.

It’s this essence of the sentiment that recommended to the world the contemporary poetesses who write in Montenegrin – a language powerful and rich, yet of very limited diffusion.
In fact, it’s miraculous, having in mind how very few people happen to be native speakers of this language, how many great poems were written in it and what a big part of those poems were written during the times of darkness and chaos.
Poetry in it’s essence is the first effigy of magic, and skills and reputation of our sorceresses had surpassed not only geographical borders, but those trans-personal too.

Q: Where is writer’s place today? Which is their role?

A: We should start by defining who is a writer – and that’s the controversial topic of the day. I think that to most of us, to whom one of the ex-Yugoslav languages is a mother-tongue, “a writer” – regardless of their gender – sounds quite seriously.

But, not only worlds got created with words, as it’s written – words were also used for evil purposes and had fatal consequences for entire nations. Maybe you recall the infamous sentencing for “verbal delict” which Constitution of ex Yugoslavia used to limit the freedom of speech; most of the great Russian writers had to be published in samizdat*, fatwa calling was issued for Sir Salman Rushdie’s death.

* a key form of dissident activity in the Soviet bloc, individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed them from reader to reader- note by L.R.S.

That means the word still has its primordial strength and that by its use some powerful energies can be manipulated. And while those energies per se are beyond good and evil – which intent they will be used for and how skillfully – that depends on the individual labeling themselves as a writer, it depends on their consciousness, their craftsmanship and personal power.

http://www.vijesti.me/kultura/lena-ruth-stefanovic-davo-strah-slobode-izbora-clanak-65399

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanja_Baki%C4%87

http://www.rhiz.eu/article-70798-en.html

http://www.montenegrina.net/pages/pages1/knjizevnost/kritika/dragana_tripkovic_pjesme_n_mihovilic_komatina.html

http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragana_Tripkovi%C4%87

http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blog/list?

Everything you always wanted to know about Kabbalah*

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by in essay, philosophy, religion

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from left to right: L.R.S., I. Lazarevic, T. Bakic, V. Simunovic[slideshow]

*but were afraid to ask

notes from the lecture ‘Let my people know’, held on May 23d t.y. in American Corner, Podgorica in the framework of Jewish American heritage month

Kabbalah , that ancient mystical worldview, at the same time, paradoxically, is the most interesting contemporary philosophical phenomenon.

When it comes to the mystical traditions in the framework of Judeo-Christianity, we can say that since Victorian England and A. Crowley’s Thelema, not a single school of philosophy has caused such a stir as postmodern Kabbalah did. (Not to forget that Crowley’s Qabala is also rooted in Jewish Kabbalah, albeit way more liberal and adjusted for those who aren’t religiously observant.)

Postmodern Kabbalah is a phenomena that developed in two directions: first religious Jews during 60es  imported Jewish Kabbalah to America; which is, in 1965 rabbi Filip Berg and his teacher,  rabbi Yehuda Brandwein, founded outpost of the prestigious Yeshiva Kol Yehuda  in USA; from there, couple of decades later, liberalized and emancipated triumphant Kabbalah returned to the Holy Land, where many – including names like Gershom Sholem, had written it off.

This very lecture is based on the positions of the Department of Philosophy of Ben Gurion University – academically the highest rated university in Israel – and it’s leading Kabbalah scholar, professor doctor Boaz Huss.

Root of the word “Kabbalah” comes from Hebrew verb  le kabel – to receive, it’s a kind of knowledge that can not be acquired individually, from books only, but requires a teacher who has appropriate Kabbalistic lineage.

(My own teacher is a student of Yehuda Berg, son of rav Berg who founded Kabbalah Center.)

Back on the topic of Kabbalah. Today, some  13% of American Jews are traditionally observant (“orthodox”); they lead the same way of life as their grand grand fathers did in the old world; by choice they refute secular education, modern culture and media, while living in insular and self-sufficient communities.  Personally, i find it a positive occurrence, because in that way traditional Judaism is preserved – but to me such way of life is alien and unacceptable.

Here we arrive to the biggest challenge of the contemporary spirituality – organized religion’s popularity is declining everywhere in the free world, religious institutions with educated parts of the society cause almost exclusively contempt and disdain – yet the need to find meaning in life probably has never been bigger.

In that “no one’s land” between dogma and atheism – Kabbalah is reborn, as an American phenomena, child of the intermarriage of Orthodox Judaism and American liberalism – all together with the red string, whistling Madonna’s  “Im nin alu”.

In US, western civilization is generally referred to as Judeo-Christian, which is the most obvious indicator of the acceptance of the common source of both traditions – such attitude and KC’s fundamental position that Kabbalah is appropriate both for Jews and non-Jews, contributed to the popularity of the movement and of the wisdom itself … that is – the science itself.

Ben Gurion University does define Kabbalah as science, albeit in this definition some methodological challenges are acknowledged – the only available method which is available for academic research of Kabbalah – is linguistic.

As we know – Kabbalh is basically gematria – Hebrew letters have numerical value – and total sum of all numeric values of individual letters in a word is compared and juxtaposed with other words with same numerical value; that grants us the possibility for an indepth reading of the Torah.

Thus, for example, the numerical value of Hebrew word for vine, yayin, (spelled:yud-yud-nun, equals 70)  is identical to that of the word for secret (sod); thus, on the forth, deepest level of reading of the Bible, the infamous Egyptian Pharo becomes our own ego made of uncertainty and fears, and Israel – the individual soul craving freedom and love.

When it comes to the teaching itself  - Hillel, a wise man who lived at the very turn of the era – formulated its essence in the following manner: Love the neighbor as yourself, now go and learn.

The main text of Kabbalah – Zohar, which is a commentary on the Torah, is of Encyclopedia Britannica’s volume; except that – Kabbalah is a way of life which includes adherence to a different calendar, dietary rules, special praying books and numerous holidays; what matters the most is the particular intention one has, or – the  consciousness if you wish (kavvanah), during these ritual and observances.

Calendar which Kabbalists use is the traditional Jewish calendar, dietary rules as well, and so are the holidays – it’s the approach itself that is very different. Traditional approach is historical – religious holidays are the celebration of some ancient events, important for the history of the Jews ; kabbalistic approach is mystical – every single holiday is viewed as a possibility to connect to the Light of the Creator and thus achieve both spiritual and worldly progress.

Here we arrive to one of the most bitter arguments against Kabbalah – that it is not suitable for non-Jews; professor doctor Boaz Huss deconstructs the former position as follows: kabbalistic premise is that the Light of Creator is undifferentiated, how could  there be such separation in the first place?

Not to forget that the strongest opponents of neo Kabbalah and KC itself are some orthodox rabbis who have their own schools of Kabbalah – albeit by far not as successful    as KC.

Oftentimes, the argument of “authenticity” is used – firstly, there isn’t a definition of authentic Kabbalah, secondly – scanning of Zohar, red string, devoted studies of astrology and belief system based on reincarnation are typical of all Kabbalah schools; regarding the canonical adherence, in KC the traditional Sephardic canon is observed, so these accusations are insubstantial.

From the other side, it is this very traditionalism that some liberal American thinkers find outdated and reactionary, even cult-like; when it comes to the latter, we do know from history that the difference between a cult and a religion – is merely hundred years.

Presumed commercialization and involvement of entertainers with the movement are also often used as contra arguments  - i presume it goes without saying that life was very different once upon a time in Ukrainian and Polish shtetls, than it is today in contemporary north America in the times of liberal capitalism; to judge one by the measurements of the other i find ridiculous.

Yehuda Berg himself, the leader of KC, last decade or so is inevitably included into the NY Times list of the most influential rabbis – and always somewhere close to the top of the list.

All of it is quite an unexpected turn both for the religious fundamentalists and for the academic scholars, followers of Gershom Sholem – not to forget that the latter claimed Kabbalah to be absolutely irrelevant once the Zionist project came to be and the state of Israel was founded.

Postmodern Kabbalah, speaking in Hebrew with thick American accent and proudly wearing the red string on the left wrist – has denied him irrevocably.

 

The White Plague and Raise of the Fallen Woman

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in coming of age story

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source: wiki, non-free use rationale

My maternal grandfather was a partisan, he died in battle on Syrmian Front, leaving behind his twenty eight years old widow and their two daughters, both toddlers at the time.
Having won the National Liberation War – in Yugoslavia the WWII turned out to be both antifascist movement and proletarian revolution – the partisans who survived overtook the power and relocated from their respective villages to the capital, Belgrade.
Yet there, more dangerous enemy expected them – the ambushing force of Heroin, the white plague, which took advantage of uninformed concealment to attack their children in the urban jungle.
Why and how exactly a society built on communist values had developed a bizarre fascination with nihilistic heroin culture – is everyone’s guess.
Who knows, maybe adopting that skinny, hung over look with vampire-like pale skin and dark circles under eyes was just a teenage way to rebel against the parental aesthetic values – those of a healthy, sturdy and sun-tanned villagers.
And like in Alan Ginsberg’s poem, we saw:
“… the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…”
For that heroin chick look wasn’t stimulated, the white plague was ravening the society.
I believe that with time heroin had become some kind of illusionary opt-out of the predominant semi-urban culture, stuck half way between the village and the city – the escape from folk music and small-town mentality which could not grow roots in the city.
The thing is that there wasn’t much alternative – God was in exile and Western culture mostly didn’t sit well with the ruling ideology.
The socialist youth grew increasingly disinterested in partisan movies and in socialist-realism all together with it’s proletarian appeal and support of Party’s aims, yet more proactive protests seemed to be in vain…
In 1968 students’ protests erupted in Belgrade, the police beat them and banned all public gatherings. Students then occupied the Faculty of Philosophy, were holding debates and speeches on the social justice.
President Tito had applied one of his sly tactics to gradually stop the protests – seemingly he gave in saying that “students are right” during a televised speech, yet in the following years he sacked the leaders of the protests from universities and party posts. The borders were opened and many had left the country then – the most creative ones, like Marina Abramovic and also, both the most educated and the hardest working ones had sought better future abroad. Those who stayed, unless with time they too succumbed to the ruling hypocrisy, tried to find the middle way in arts and there heroin was laying in wait.
You would have learned that cult musicians, whose eyes gazed at you unblinkingly from the posters glued to the wall in your room, were on dope and you would think to yourself that it must be a really cool thing to do.
Of course, in the ivory tower of my Prague’s home, heroin will remain out of reach – and thanks goodness for that; yet, i could read on it and that’s exactly what i did.
Christiane F. – the teen heroin addicted prostitute from the book “We Children from Bahnhof Zoo”, living in a dreary West Berlin’s neighborhood and hanging out at a rail station – shall become my unlikely teen idol.
Truth to be told, she was merely one of the many “fallen women” characters for whom i would develop quite an odd admiration at young age. Anna Karenina and her French counterpart – Madam Bovary, living with their dull husbands in petit bourgeoisie surroundings did not appeal to me, albeit i strongly empathized with them; i wasn’t drawn to tragic Marguerite Gautier, the lady of the Camellias, albeit i did feel sorry for her being a child of Alexandre Dumas who couldn’t come up with some better ending. It was Abbé Prévost’s adventurous gold-digger Manon Leascaut followed by tauntingly beautiful, endlessly neurotic and self-destructive Dostoyevski’s famm fatale- Nasstasya Filippovna, who oddly struck a chord with me. The latter shall remain the book-love of my teeange life, interrupted only by a brief book-romance with Vladimir Kunin’s “Interdevochka” – the hard currency hooker, Tanya.
Did author, whose Jewish surname was Feinberg before he changed it to Kunin, named his heroine after Pushkin’s noble Tatyana, showing tongue in cheek to Soviets who claimed there wasn’t prostitution in their homeland – is everyone’s guess as well.
Anyhow, all of those ‘gals got harshly dealt with by authors who created them – brought to sudden death, or a slow one, or committing suicide – their ‘fathers’ didn’t know what else to do with their renegade daughters, as much as they seemed to both love and hate them.
It’s only much later that reincarnated fallen woman will make it – as a geisha – and she will recall it in her fictional memoirs; it would take a Mandarin-speaking American Jew, Arthur Golden, ten years of rewriting the novel to finally redeem her poor old soul by the end of twentieth century. And albeit wrapped in satin kimono once first geisha of Japan, Mineko Iwasaki, would sue Golden for the breach of trust and denounce his depiction of geiko community – the book nerds of the world will feel so relieved by the raise of a fallen woman that the novel will be on New York Times best – seller list for two years and the film version will win three Academy Awards.

to be continued 

Copyright © L.R.S., All Rights Reserved

Poster Copyright Notice: source – wiki, non-free use rationale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christiane_F_Poster.jpg

You Are What You Read

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in essay

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I get the creeps lately if asked what i read. I usually answer with white lies, because i am too tired of explaining myself. As a writer, i am expected to read a lot – and rightly so. There is no special education for writers – forget about commercial workshops of creative writing, hardly anyone learned to write there.

Writers are not expected to have an exquisite formal education either, many of the best ones didn’t have any – yet they are expected to have interesting lives and to read manically.

That was the problem with women who wrote earlier – hardly anyone was interested in reading accounts of endless hours spent embroidering or gardening – or, per that matter, of any other activity a literate lady was allowed to engage in at the time.

Fast forward couple of centuries – and you are allowed to write on just about anything. With Lolita, in mid 20th century, Vladimir Nabokov broke the only remaining  taboo theme in American Literature – the pedophilia. (Of course, many saw it as a metaphor of The Old Continent incorporated in deviant Humbert seducing the innocent USA – aka Lolita.)

But now that everything is permitted, what are you going to read? And why?

I wish i could un-do the corruption done to me by hundreds of the crappy books i read as a teenager. Some of those were classics – but no matter how well written those were, the ideas behind them are stupid from contemporary point of view… think of endless Victorian pseudo-moralization for example, what harm it has done to women’s  awareness and, subsequently, to their rights.

I am flabbergasted by the compulsory reading in Montenegrin schools, the folk poems nationalists take so much pride in are deviant from the point of view of contemporary, liberated women – yet those are thought without any updates on progress achieved since the dark ages.

Apropos, in a country as small as ours, there are over 100 publishing houses, only four of them not being vanity publishers. Montenegrin population of 650.000 – not known to be among the avid readers – gets ten books published every single day. Most of it is crap – here, and worldwide too.

By crap i don’t mean chick lit – to the contrary, i enjoyed Lauren Weisberger’s ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and ‘Everyone worth knowing’ – and many others of a kind.

I enjoy well written self-help books too, cook books and whatnot.

For work i have to read a lot, i was a member of managing board of local writer’s guild for years and as of currently i am its secretary general, that by default includes plenty of reading; last year i was the president of Montenegrin jury for European Union Prize for Literature, which added significantly to my usual reading.

For my own writing, i do scholarly researches worthy of a PhD thesis. I firmly believe that had someone invested the time to honor my work by reading it – they do deserve to get something in exchange.

The best praise i ever got – was by a great American poetess Tess Gallagher, who was love of Raymond Carver’s life and is his widow; she was the guest of honor at a literature festival here, that’s how we met… Now i must say that through my work with the State Protocol and, besides, being on perpetual globe-trotting of my own, i had met some of the richest and most influential individuals in the world – heads of states,  legendary rock stars, folks from Forbes lists… it’s cool meeting people like that, not that wealth and fame are contagious, but because those people are usually quite extraordinary and it’s a privilege to spend some time in their vicinity, or at least that’s how i see it. But, all of those encounters put together don’t mean to me a half of what meeting Tess Gallalgher meant and none of it is even close to the impact her presence had on me. I had the honor of spending couple of hours for two consecutive days with this amazing lady – and it’s an experience deserving a memoir of its own.

Among all the things i learned from grand Tess in these two days – a sentence she said stayed forever with me and had marked me as a writer; apropos my story “Teshuva” published within first anthology of contemporary Montenegrin literature in English, Tess said: “I’ve never learned so much from a short story.”

(Actually that’s how we met, she had asked our great actress Varja Djukic to introduce her to the author of that story.)

That’s why i push myself over the physical and intellectual limits, that’s the motive behind manic researching behind my own writing.

I want you to get something in return for the time you choose to devote to my humble contribution, that pretty much sums it up.

And i insist on reciprocity here – if i am reading your stuff, i want to learn from it – or at least, get entertained. Or, ideally – both.

That’s why it’s tough for me to choose a novel. Currently, i am thoroughly enjoying  Jose Saramago’s “Death with Interruptions”, he is one of my favorite writers and i read all of his books translated into our language – most of his opus that is. His work is genius, no other (as of current grammar use) adjective  could describe it justly.

I read books that accompany Tarot decks – some of them are downright masterpieces, like those authored by Robert Place and Karen Mahony of Magic Realist Press.

I read Tarot itself and i am religiously following numerous Tarot blogs (see my blog roll.)

During last year or so i read several Lon Milo DuQuette’s books, him being my favorite occult author.

Not to forget the Yiddishkeit /keeping up with the Kabbalists  and at least couple of hours a week i invest into yet another subject requiring a life-long commitment-the Yi Jing studies… and there is not time left for anything penned that’s less than excellent.

I started abandoning books – a practice unthinkable to me before, i had posted on my disappointment with Tea Obreht’s debute novel, “The Tiger’s Wife” , and i am giving up on Philip Roth’s “Nemesis” as well. I read the latter in English, so i can’t blame the usual suspect – the translator. I don’t like it. Besides being a priori suspicious when it comes to overly prolific writers – they smack of commercialism to me – i don’t find a trace of traditional Jewish values in this novel, albeit the narrative relies heavily on Judaic folklore. A good guy is surrounded by two-dimensional characters and worn down by unlucky circumstances in overly-simplified sentences… I read half of it during long rides in Moscow’s tube, but – as i had mentioned earlier- for better or for worse, there is no tube in Montenegro, so i’ll give it a pass.

As usual, this essay was inspired by a conversation with a friend, this time – with Kristina Manly, one of the very few brave souls who admit to share my hatred for Leo Tolstoy’s “Ana Karenina” and who were proud to abandon reading it.

As usually, prior to writing an essay, i did a Tarot reading to gain more insight, this time i combined Robert M. Place’s Alchemical and Vampire decks.

The Alchemical, among else, hit me with Grim Reaper and the Vampire – with The Wheel of Fortune (Fate), former indicating profound transformation which we undergo in the process of reading and the latter, in my opinion, the effects and actual changes an actual discourse can cause to the course of our destinies.

Queen of Stakes depicts Bram Stoker’s mother – Charlotte – strong and passionate, a social reformer and a feminist; the Court itself denotes someone who is both inspired and inspiring others…

My own mother has recommended me Saramago’s novel and passed me the book, while she’s currently reading Rachel Pollack’s  follow-up to the classic “78 Degrees of Wisdom” – her “Tarot wisdom:Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings”, in Russian translation.

with Tess Gallagher in Montenegro – photo from personal archives 2010

Copyright@2012 L.R.S., All Rights Reserved

Picture of the Tarot Reading setting copyright notice: The Vampire Tarot (2009) and The Alchemical Tarot (1995)  decks @Robert M. Place, All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

 

Three Little Habits to Find Focus

10 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Zen

≈ 4 Comments

Photo by PlusMinus; pemission: GFDL cc-by-sa

by Leo Babauta

I’ll be the first to admit that I fall victim to the trap of the Internet — a wonderful empowering tool that can fill your day with distractions, a million little “productive” tasks that matter little, constant interruptions from messages and status updates.

Who doesn’t fall victim to this?

We are frittering our lives away.

So how do we beat this? How do we make best use of the awesomeness of the Internet (which has given me the power to do what I love) without succumbing to its powers of distraction? This is a question that obviously occupied the minds of the ancients, from Aristotle to Lao Tzu (who was particularly prone to Lolcats), without any good answer.

I have good news. There is a way. It’s not always easy, but I’ve done it, and if I can do it, anyone can.

It takes three little habits:

1. Set a time limit. Pick something important to do, and set a limited time to do it. That might be one hour, or 20 minutes, or even just 10 if you’re having a hard time getting into it. The time limit helps sharpen your focus. If you have limited time to do something, you’ll be forced to decide what’s important. It also means you’re not doing some unlimited task that could take hours, but a very specific one that will be over in X minutes. Setting a limit is good too for when you decide to process your email — only 20 minutes to get as many emails processed as you can, for example.

2. Close everything. This means everything possible on your computer that isn’t absolutely necessary for the task at hand. If you don’t need the Internet to write something, close it. Close email, all notifications and reminders, all programs not needed for your task. If you need your browser open, close all tabs — bookmark them, or save them to a read-later service likeInstapaper. You can always open these sites when you’re done.

3. Pause before switching. So you’ve closed everything else, you’ve set a time limit for your task at hand, and you’re getting started … but then you get the urge to check email or Facebook or Twitter. You want to see what’s happening on Instagram or Pinterest or Youtube. Stop. Make yourself pause for 5-10 seconds. This is the key habit that makes the other two work. Take a deep breath. Think about whether you really want to fritter your life away doing those things all day, every day, or if you want to do something great. Choose great, most of the time.

These are little habits, and you can do them. When your time is up, you can give yourself a few minutes’ break to check your favorite sites, and then close them again. But when you’re trying to focus, practice these habits. They’re a small price to pay for a life not frittered away by distractions.

uncopyrighted

the illustration: Tofukuji Reiun-in Gaun-no-niwa Kyoto,Japan; source: Photo by PlusMinus; permission: GFDL cc-by-sa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ReiunIn_GaunNoNiwa.jpg

reblogged from http://zenhabits.net/focused/

more from Leo Babauta http://leobabauta.com/

Communist Calendar (excerpt)

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Satire, Short Story

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public domain

Proletarian revolution shall prevail and America and England shall become proletarian countries, we were told behind the Iron Curtain. We hoped Americans and Englishmen knew better.
By the age of fifteen everyone i knew had realized that we lived in a farce and that what we were thought was a lie. All of it.
We were told that a person who was raised in socialism had nothing to do in the West. The West was rotten, you see.

Evil capitalists were sucking blood from the working class that suffered – but, due to unknown circumstances, the latter weren’t yet class-conscious enough so to get the manufacturing tools into their hands and overthrow the parasites- capitalists. We weren’t thought how much it would take them to do so, but the future looked bright and we were encouraged to be looking forward to living in it.

It all sounded very much like Tikkune Olam being completed, the ultimate Judaic spiritual correction of the world, with the difference that the Messiah – Marx – had already arrived.
But, we needed to better our consciousness for his teachings to start working fully. He had proved that capitalism will fall – and there was no way of avoiding that, it was just a question of time.
Meanwhile, we had to move from socialism, where everyone gave according to abilities and was given according to needs- to communism – that’s where the money would finally stop existing and everyone would be perfectly happy to contribute selflessly to the society whatever they could, while the society would take care of every single whim of theirs, or something like that.
I was 13 or so when i told to my father that it won’t work, that there is no way it would – as no one would get up from their beds in the morning under such circumstances.
He said i didn’t get it, you see, he believed in the fairy tale he was told, in the proletarian revolution, which turned out to be the biggest Jewish upraise in history, following the appearance of the long-awaited Messiah – Carl Marx.
It’s only that everyone denied they were Jewish – and Marx in the first place.
For the communist, the chosen one, it did not matter.
Marx was the new Moses, Engels was his brother – Aaron and Clara Zetkin was the incarnation of their sister, Miriam.
Capitalists were the Egyptians from whom we had to escape – the might of the super-powerful Soviet Union, which had replaced in the new pantheon the infamous by than Hashem – would have protect us from the Capitalists- Egyptians, as the chosen proletariat would cross the parted Red Sea and reach the communist shore of the other side.
Than all would be happy, on this shore of milk and honey and we would forget all we suffered back in Egyptian capitalism and would live happily ever after.
It’s only that we were still in the desert, after 70y of parting from the Capitalistic Egypt, and manna had stopped long time ago.
Marx had retired to some Sinai of his, yet wasn’t showing signs of coming back.
Tzaddikim, righteous souls, in form of the Presidium of the Communist Party were there to protect us though.
The mixed multitude that followed the chosen Soviet people on their way to communist freedom was indeed mixed – it constituted of Afghans, Mongolians, Cubans and even Africans, but all were equal (albeit we could see that some were more equal than the others.)
We witnessed miracles which proved it – Gagarin was in cosmos after all. The TV and newspapers were repeatedly proving how our prophets were right – every day in every way we were getting better and better and all of it was documented.

Throughout our community history we were thought poisonous replicas of Biblical stories. Stalin had sacrificed his own son, in the same way in which Abraham the patriarch was ready to sacrifice Isaac… it’s only that in Biblical account, on some deeper level, Abraham’s binding of Isaac represented restriction of one’s own negative inclinations, while Yosif Visarionivich turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic and mass murdered, but we couldn’t know any of it.

They even invented a calendar of their own, which varied slightly depending on whether you were in the Eretz SSSR – or – in diaspora, in one of its satellites.
But the High Holydays were observed by all, with no exceptions.
The Victory Day, May 9th was one such Holy Day where you were commanded to make pilgrimage to the nearest monument of Unknown Soviet Soldiers, bow deeply and present sacrifices – the bouquet of carnations.
The New Year was, of course, the communist Christmas and Ded Moroz aka Grandfather Frost was the new incarnation of the late Santa Claus, he had lost his sanctity, but had gained a granddaughter, Snegurochka – the Snow Maiden – who would become his companion and consolation in the new times.
The Christmas tree was still there – only it was renamed “elechka” – little fir tree – and was crowned with five-pointed red star at the top.

There were traitors, the infamous Spies who were sent as forward observance to those distant lands; some of them would give in to their negative inclinations and would cross over to the giants, the sons of Anak who saw us as grasshoppers. They were cursed for ever to burn in the capitalist hell, headed by – as we were thought – by some second rate actor, who by default couldn’t be a first-class president. Unlike our presidents.
It’s only that ours were dying one after another, and their was thriving.
We would have days off school when yet another mummy-like looking Soviet president would die and we weren’t happy when Gorbachov came into power; he seemed too young to be dying anytime soon and we felt deprived of the free from school days.
He was dabbed Mineral Secretary as he started the war on Votka. He never knew what chaos would start when Russians finally sobered up.

Copyright ©2012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

Daguerreotype, Appalachia, circa 1900

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Poems

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Daguerreotype collection (Library of Congress).

The first light picture ever taken. 1839.


Daguerreotype, Appalachia, circa 1900
by Susan Gunter

The faded brown daguerreotype on our mantel
shows a wildcatter, male, upright,
dressed in a suit and white starched shirt,
its banded collar cramping his thick neck,
standing beside a geyser of black gold
in Appalachia. He fathered six
and kept a wife at home in East Hickory.
In the picture, it is raw spring.
A late snowstorm killed the cherry blooms–
the trees just north of his drill rig.
That meant no pie timber for winter
and no pitting the fruit
in July with steel hairpins.
His daughter Ruby used to scoop
the cherry stones until her fingers
bore small curved imprints.

At twelve, she twisted her long
hair in a Chinese braid down her back.
Her brothers pulled it until she cried.
On summer days they chased her to the river,
one wearing a black snake wound about his arm.
She was screaming as she slipped
into the Allegheny’s spinning waters.
They laughed at her as her bright calico skirt
buoyed above her waist like a balloon,
her tight braid floating on the dark water.

After her father left the oil fields,
rich enough now to sell the farm,
they moved to a frame house in town,
with gingerbread trim all around the porch.
When the money went, as all but he knew it would,
she apprenticed to the town seamstress.
One day she cut her hand and bled
all over the banker’s daughter’s wedding gown.
She sewed fine satin over the stain.
Two years later she fell in love
with the quiet older Swedish man
who brought groceries to their back door.
They courted at church suppers and drove
to the lake in the summer in his buggy.

Her third child was stillborn,
the fourth died of pneumonia at just two years–
they had no penicillin then. She had her grief,
though, and stayed in bed a month.
When her husband died she moved
to a room in her eldest daughter’s house,
taking the daguerreotype with her.

On her maple dresser rested a china bowl,
white with pink and green straw flowers
and a hole in the top the size of a ring finger.
At night she tugged her combs
from her silver hair and placed them in the bowl.
She brushed her thinnng hair one hundred times
and loosened her corset stays,
letting it slip to the floor.
For years she could barely see,
but when the cataracts fell from her eyes
she read past midnight of distant magic mountains,
where there were no witches, only snow in summer.

Every day the water roared over a blue Niagra
on the top of her tin button box and
the windup alarm ticked on her dresser.
When we called her one morning, she didn’t stir.
Her broad chest lay still beneath the chenille spread,
her fingers curled open on the sheet
as though she had just let go of something.
Copyright ©1988 Susan Gunter, All Right Reserved

Dagerotipija, Apalačke planine, otprilike 1900
Susan Gunter

prevod Lena Rut Stefanović

Na požuteloj starinskoj fotografiji na našem kaminu
stoji naftaš – muževan, prav,
u odelu i uštirkanoj košulji,
uzdignut beli okovratnik steže mu snažni vrat
- kraj gejzira od crnog zlata
u Apalačima. Njegovih šestoro dece i žena
su kući, u Istočnom Hikoriju.

Na slici je rano proleće.
Pozne mećave ubile su trešnjin cvat-
drveće je odmah tu, nešto severnije od bušotina.
To znači da nema kolača s voćem zimi
niti čišćenja koštica čeličnim ukosnicama
u Julu.
Njegova kći Rubi vadila bi tako koštice
iz trešanja sve dok joj se šnala
nebi usekla u prste.

U dvanestoj, uplitala je svoju dugu kosu
u pletenicu koja se spuštala niz leđa, do struka.
Braća bi je vukla za kosu dok nebi zaplakala.
Letnjim danima bi je jurili do reke,
jedan od njih imao je ranu od ujeda smuka na ruci.
Ona bi vrištala dok bi ulazila
u uskovitlane vode Alegene.
Smejali bi se dok bi joj se svetla, nabrana suknja,
poput balona, uzdizala do struka
i zajedno sa pletenicom plutala po tamnoj vodi.

Nakon što je njen otac napustio naftna polja,
dovoljno bogat da može prodati farmu,
preselili su se u grad, u kuću sa šiljastim krovom,
čiji je trem bio oivičen kitnjastom ogradom.
Kad je novca nestalo – a svi osim njega znali su da hoće
počela je da uči zanat kod gradske švalje.
Jednog dana posekla je ruku i iskrvarila
na venčanicu bankareve kćeri.
Zašila je fini saten preko mrlje.
Dve godine kasnije zaljubila se
u starijeg, povučenog čoveka iz Švedske,
koji je dostavljao namirnice na stražnja vrata njihove kuće.
Udvarao joj se dok bi večaravali u crkvi,
leti bi se odvozili na jezero njegovim bugijem.

Njegovo treće dete bilo je mrtvorođenče,
četvrto je umrlo od upale pluća tek napunivši dve godine -
nije bilo penicilina tada. Ona je tugovala, pak,
ne ustavši mesec dana sa postelje.
Kada joj je suprig preminuo prešla je
kod najstarije ćerke, u jednu sobu,
ponevši fotografiju sa sobom.

Na škrinji od javorovog drveta
stajala je zdela od porcelana,
oslikana ružičastim i zelenim poljskim cvećem,
sa otvorom na vrhu veličine kažiprsta.
Pred počinak bi skidala češljiće
sa svoje srebrne kose i odlagala ih tamo.
Četkom bi prešla proređenu kosu stotinu puta
i olabavila kopče od steznika,
puštajući ga da sklizne na pod.
Godinama je bila slabovida,
ali kada je mrena spala sa njenih očiju,
dugo iza ponoći bi čitala o dalekim magičnim planinama
u kojima nema veštica, već samo snega tokom leta.

Svakog dana voda bi hučala na plavim vodopadima Nijagare
na vrhu njene limene kutije za dugmad
dok je sat na navijanje otkucavao na plakaru.
Jednog jutra, kada smo je pozvali, nije se pomakla.
Njene krupne grudi ležale su nepomično pod veženim prekrivačem,
prsti joj behu opušteni na čaršavu,
kao da je upravo ispustila nešto.

Copyright ©1988 Susan Gunter, All Right Reserved
Authorized Translation ©2012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

Susan Gunter, Ph.D.http://www.westminstercollege.edu/apps/directory/directory_dsp.cfm?unit=sgunter

Susan’s website http://www.susanegunter.com/my-other-books.html

America’s First Look into the Camera: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/

Bugger off, Nietzsche

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in essay, philosophy

≈ 15 Comments

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the image is in public domain


If on this Sunday morning you happen to be reading (either of the two sequels of) the all time best selling Book – in original or in any of its more or less loose adaptations – chances are you will be reading accounts of explicit violence – wars, mass murders, rapes and whatnot.

If the Holy Bible was to enter a competition for some prestigious contemporary literature award – chances are the jury would toss it out immediately, as it doesn’t fulfill the necessary criteria.

The text is discriminating, violent , misogynist and all in all in opposition to all our civilizational values… albeit, paradoxically, those were actually built on the very scripture.
Right, its a high quality prose and – which matters the most – it’s gruesome, which for unknown reason became criteria number one for distinguishing good prose from that which is not.
Woody Alan, whose own writing style is mostly satirical, said writing a drama was like sitting at the table with grow-ups.
Which, for example, places the quintessential English humorist P.G. Wodehouse with his genius body of work – at the kids’ table. And, you know, i am certain that author of the genius Jeeves canon – a hereditary nobleman admired by Rudyard Kipling in the past and by Douglas Adams, J. K. Rowling and John Le Carré in our times – would be way happier there, at the children’s table.
For among the grown ups, the “literature heavyweights”, there would be those with long faces – the bores, the neurotics and the obnoxious drama queens. And they would be drinking heavily, many would leave the table often to sniff crack in the bathroom, at least few of them would have a nervous break down while still at the first course and by the time the busy waiters would serve a dessert, what they would find at the grown ups’ table – would be best described by a dreary cliche – they would have found only a pile of dead bodies.
Meanwhile, at the kids’ table, Sir Wodehouse would have acknowledged:“I go in for what is known in the trade as ‘light writing’ and those who do that – humorists they are sometimes called – are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at.”
While looking at the other table, being a humanist that he was, Sir Wodehouse would experience the profound sadness, the sort of “…abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.” (1)
Sir Wodehouse would node his head in disbelief and, sighing, would say to the amazed by the happening young people at his table: “There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”
Addressing the young man to his right, he would add in his Queen’s English spiced with contemporary clubroom slang: “You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.” (2)
And he would be right in diagnosing Nietzsche, who – as misinterpreted as he is – was a mentally ill misogynist and predecessor to Nazism.

It’s true that Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, and avid supporter of Hitler, meddled with his work(3); after his mental breakdown she added, removed and altered whole passages to make his philosophy suit her own beliefs and those of her anti-Semite husband Bernhard Förster.
Sure, boo you, Elisabeth, for doing so, but… How could have Nietzsche been so venomous towards Jewish religion and its God, without being an anti-Semite?
Scholars agree that his attitude towards ancient Hebrews was rather affirmative, and that he virulently opposed onlySecond Temple Judaism…
The things is that it’s during that very period that Jews established the tenets of their religion – authority of the Scripture and centrality of the religious law.
So basically, Nietzsche only approved of the strand from which Christianity sprung and – surprise, surprise – that’s the only element of Judaism that all anti-Semites universally approve. (4)
So, please, spare me.

These are Nietzsche’s words: Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows… (5)
And more: “You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!”
Sure Nietzsche’s remarks on women became notoriously sordid after Rée-Salomé episode, the truth is that tacky story of a love triangle merely brought to surface his underlying dudgeon and preexisting indignation.
So, lets’ leave Nietzsche where he belongs – at the “grown ups’ table” and lets’ go back to Sir Wodehouse, who was meanwhile joined by the first chick-lit author in written history – by Jane Austin herself.
At that very moment, she was contributing to the lively discussion: “Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.”
Upon being interrupted and asked would she like to move with the grown ups’, she said she’d rather not and added: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”
George Mikes, who was also there, laughed heartily at Jane Austen’s comment and expanded on his commandment to imitate the English: ‘On the Continent learned persons love to quote Aristotle, Horace, Montaigne and show off their knowledge; in England only uneducated people show off their knowledge, nobody quotes Latin and Greek authors in the course of a conversation, unless he has never read them.’
Meanwhile, one of Russian kids stood up from the small table and approached Dostoevsky who was sitting at the head of the grown ups’ table.
“Excuse me, Sir”- the well-behaved kid addressed creepy looking bearded man, “I need to tell you something…”
The man he spoke to seemed to be immersed in his thoughts, dwelling in an alien world confined within the borders of his own head, he paid no attention at the surroundings.
Still, with concerned expression on his face, the kid continued:”You see, Sir, the very premise on which you built your masterpiece is wrong. The thing is that, as you depicted Prince Myshkin, in mother Russia he would never be consider an idiot. He is yurodivy, a Fool for Christ, and you know from our history that Russian people would have never dealt with him in a manner you describe.
Your infamous anti-hero Rogozhin is downright a clown in comparison to our king Ivan the Terrible, yet even he was in awe of the yurodivy Bazil the Blessed and even built him a temple, the most beautiful temple in Moscow, because he was afraid of wreath of God… for it’s only yurodivy who speak the truth and we, Russians, know it.”
The kid also wanted to share his thoughts on the (in)necessity of writing thousands of pages on a topic that the Gospels have already thoroughly analyzed and even provided solutions for, but by the time he had finished the brief speech, Dostoevsky had lost consciousness and slipped under the table.

These very musings were prompted by a discussion on Proust that Jeanette, Roger, Aleksandra and i had on facebook.
You see, he’s criticized by some that his ‘In Search of Time Lost’ comes across as shallow and gossipy. Like, he is not sufficiently concerned with the ultimate definition of good and evil and alike.
Oh, really? And those writers who torture you page after page with descriptions of hardship and suffering, have they made this world a happier place?
I hear you when you say “the point is raising the question”… It certainly is, but the thing is that all those questions were raised at the dawn of the humanity – and unless you have an answer and a solution – please, shut the f*ck up.

We are witnessing an illogical dichotomy between scientific approaches of psychology and literary criticism.
In psychology, there is no definition of normal – average is the norm. “Normal” is a description of a behavior which conforms to the most common behaviour in a given society.
Social norms are marketed so that extreme behavior would be stopped, but if one’s behavior deviates way off the accepted social norms, it gets diagnosed as pathology.

Many, if not the most of the literary and philosophic heavyweights were diagnosed with mental illness and often held in confinement, as they were potentially dangerous for themselves and their surroundings too.
Yet it’s their thoughts and their words that we are pushed on as exemplary.
Do you see the paradox here? An individual is held in confinement because his behavioral pattern is problematic, yet the thoughts which led to that very behavior are considered the norm for a literature to be of quality and for philosophy to be substantial?!
How hypocritical is that?
Of course we need creativity. Of course we love eloquent story telling. Get Latin American writers or Middle Eastern ones or Indian writers if you need a very different worldview. I often do and i read them eagerly because i need to re-focus from Balkan reality which surrounds me – albeit it’s surreal in its own right.
If i feel like classical heavyweight i read Thomas Mann. Or Hese. With Pushkin or Gogol and Griboyedov you can’t go wrong. I often go back to mostly forgotten, yet genius Pearl S. Buck.
But do I (you) really need the mental onanism of a sick mind, albeit it’s eloquently worded and the abyss of desperation from which it comes is so deep that it’s blood chilling?

I don’t think so.
Copyright©20012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

Copyright Notice: The picture of P.G. Wodehouse was taken in 1904 and is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

(1)P.G. Wodehouse; The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology
(2) P.G. Wodehouse; Carry On, Jeeves
(3) Nietzsche-Lexikon, Christian Niemeyer, Darmstadt 2009.
(4) For further reading see: Weaver Santaniello; Nietzsche, God, and the Jews; State Univ of NY Pr, 1994.
(5) Thus Spoke Zarathustra – On the Friend

Second Temple Judaism: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/History/HISTORY-+The+Second+Temple.htm

Nietzsche on Race and Sex, quotes: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Niet2.html

‘Criminal’ manipulation of Nietzsche by sister to make him look anti-Semitic: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7018535/Criminal-manipulation-of-Nietzsche-by-sister-to-make-him-look-anti-Semitic.html
Lou von Salomé, Paul Rée and Friedrich Nietzsche: http://www.virtusens.de/walther/lou1_e.htm

Fool for Christ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foolishness_for_Christ
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Basil_the_Blessed

The Unexpected Tale of Jönathan K. and Abraham Van Helsing

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in essay, spirituality, Tarot

≈ 10 Comments

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Ok, ok, so i have a thing for catchy titles… Jönathan is an online friend of mine – one of those people whom, upon cyber-meeting them, you think to yourself – right, all those hours spent surfing and browsing the www were not wasted. Because on occasions you get to meet people who, albeit living on the other side of the planet, have the same questions you do – and they come up with better answers faster than you ever could.
Like… remember that kid in the school who always thought of the right answer to some challenging question? And they would have already answered it while your own mind was wandering somewhere far, far away, absolutely incapable of an abrupt movement and verbal equilibristic bravado it takes for your thought to break through the surrounding confusion and shine brightly in the heavy classroom’s atmosphere?
Yeah, all of us had a classmate like that and i guess you can recall that feeling of amazement when they would come up with such perfectly executed, out of standard bookrules, Rocker Double Three, while you still couldn’t figure out how to perform a compulsory Circle Eight on the thin ice of your own corner of the skating hall in your head.
Alas, i digress.
You see, this is how it started – i had posted the following status update on facebook:
“I hear your resentment when you say “you don’t really have any problems”. But, you see, i earned this ephemeral easiness of being. You won’t guilt trip me about your own stupidity which led to the apparent dead end you are inhabiting. Don’t expect me to feel remorseful for being less vain and more self-aware than you are. And, all in all, save your anal retentiveness for yourself or pay a therapist; indeed the antagonism you are experiencing is none of my problems. There, i said it.”
I might come across as a cold blooded, cynical b*tch here… and of course, hardly anything can be further from truth. I am one of those guys who mustn’t go to the movies because my convulsive sobbing and laborious gasping over most pathetic of the Hollywood’s production upsets the audience to such extent that more often than not i am kindly escorted to the exit by the theater’s personnel, given Kleenex and a glass of water and placed in a cab which will take me home.
I have no idea how that happens, is it empathy or some kind of neurosis – or both, but the thing is that i have tough time differentiating between my own emotions and those of others. That, in turn, makes my personal boundaries so weak that more or less any trespasser can vandalize into my private space, unthrone me from my blissful non-attachment and send me down the whirlpool of emotions so strong, that it gets scary.
I did contribute to my “condition” by devotedly practicing kabbalistic Teshuva in tradition of famous Isaac the Blind – for years, each night as i would retire to bed,
i’d diligently recall all the people i had met and had spoken to during the day, while placing myself into their proverbial shoes.
And, in full honesty, i don’t mind the result. That kind of emotional shapeshifting became my modus vivendi long time ago and i am glad it’s so for when human motivation is understood, when you feel the abyss of pain behind some seemingly inconsiderate behavior … you can’t judge, you understand and forgive – those others and yourself in the first place. As spiritually uplifted as it sounds, any empath would tell you it’s actually quite simple – and indeed it is. It’s not that you are more spiritually advanced than others – it’s just that you get to a place where they come from and once you do, once you get out from your own teeny-weeny socially conditioned prism, where you arrive is – compassion. And i know that most who’ll read this essay will know exactly what i am talking about. ‘Alike attracts alike’, we all know that, but…
That’s how we get down to the subject of this writing – how exactly the ‘unlike’ gets attracted to your aura?!
How those individuals who feed on your energy and drain you manage to slip under your radar?
Is it because nowadays there is increased awareness about aggressive sociopaths, yet the equally damaging whining sub-kind is overlooked?
Is it because we learned to defend ourselves against bullying, yet instinctively feel sorry for someone who comes across as weak?
I believe it’s not instinctual – because in nature it’s the fittest who make it, yet knowing that the societies’ overall progress is measured by the care it takes of it’s weak – i think we get to the slippery ground where we confuse those less fortunate than us who should be helped – with those who should not.
I think it’s there, through that very gap, where those emotional black wholes squeeze into your life and start sucking your life juices, if not your very blood.
What i find genius about Jönathan’s comments in the thread – is the swift and succinct definition he came up with – it’s vampirism, you see.
I did attend workshops on energetic vampirism and psychic self-defense; i read numerous occult and self-help books on it, i did hours of grounding and visualization to protect myself… yet on occasion it still happens.
In theory i know the difference between Solar and Lunar energetic vampires – former being the abusers and latter the perpetual whiners and complainers.
I know from my Kabbalah teacher that i should distant myself from people with victim mentality, yet… it still happens.
We are pushed on that noble idea of the proverbial turning of the other cheek. We are perpetually made feel guilty for just about anything. We are thought that the ” meek shall inherit the earth”… and all of it so sublime, that even if you consciously refuse it – it’s there, all around you, that message that you should somehow sacrifice yourself. I beg your pardon. One should sacrifice their negative inclination – that’s actually the message there. And, of course, one should give of themselves – as much as they can, but without depleting their own sources.
It’s 1/10th you see… of your money, time – everything, that belongs to… GOD.
Call it Universe or Goddess or Spaghetti Monster – the point is that it’s not really yours, at least not all of it and that you need to give back.
But you (i, he, she) do not owe to people who choose to be abysses of negative emotions and only want to pull you down with themselves.
Their influence on you is the same as if they physically pierced you with a knife, and if you were exposed to psychic attacks, you know exactly what i am talking about!
The feeling of exhaustion, the tiredness, the depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches. Why would we do that to ourselves?
Because the social conditioning is based on that, because individuals are too difficult to manipulate and because that’s why we are all guilt-tripped and pushed into submission.
And the brighter you shine – the more thirsty vampires you’ll attract, it seems to be a universal law – for Light seems to be forever stalked by darkness. I am sure there is some wise kabbalistic explanation to this all, but i need a remedy – an instant garlic- and-a-rose-branch thing to ward off the wanke*s – and i need it now!
So, i got Robert M. Place’s Vampire Tarot and did a general reading – the picture of it is attached; the busy coffee table in my living room is where i do most of my readings and castings.
The eye-catching image of the chained woman depicted at 8 of Swords is the base of the reading; it’s related to VIII Justice in this deck – and here is the perfect ‘outline’ for the reading – here we get concise depiction of the mental anguish i am describing.
Posh Knight of Swords is the gate card, in the center – and to me it says to deal with such influences ruthlessly as he would; far to his left is Van Helsing, denoting the Hierophant in this deck and to his right is the experienced Magician, who seems to be doing some banishing ritual under the waning moon…
Fictional Dutch doctor with numerous academic titles was not named Abraham by Bram Stoker by chance.
Except being life-long friend of Pamela Colman Smith, who created the most famous Tarot deck in existence, the author of “Dracula” was friends with two founding members of the Golden Dawn. (For further reading, see R.M. Place’s excellent book accompanying the Vampire Tarot deck.)
So what is amazing Robert’s artwork telling us through the multitude of hermeneutic associations in this very reading?
As i see it, to strengthen (Strength to the right of gate card) the Knight’s contagious idealism by making the right choices (Lovers to the left of the gate card), to use all the theoretical knowledge you have from various texts (Bible included) and to apply your magickal skills so to unchain your Anima depicted on the base card from that wall of shame.
With three Major Arcanum cards which came out in this reading, the matter seem to be quite urgent.

I’d use this opportunity to thank Jönathan K. for the long overdue in this case diagnosis – because, as all the doctors, Abraham Van Helsing among them, know – diagnose is the half of the cure.
Copyright ©2012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: THE VAMPIRE TAROT ©2009 by Robert M. Place, All Rights Reserved

ADDITIONAL COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
Death card seen in background of the picture is from Tarot of Prague published by The Magic Realist Press (Tarot of Prague©2005, Alex Ukolov and Karen Mahony, All rights reserved)
The Crowley-Harris Thoth Tarot is currently published by A.G. Müller and distributed by A.G. Müller and by U.S. Games as the Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot
Vaudeville Tarot©2011 by Francisco J. Campos, All rights reserved
(Published by OKF, Cetinje)

review of the Vampire Tarot St. Marin’s Press, June 2009):
http://us.macmillan.com/thevampiretarot/RobertPlace

interview with the artist Robert M. Place: http://www.ata-tarot.com/reflections/06-05-09/the_immortal_work_of_robert.html

Memories of things that once were

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in coming of age story, essay

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for Jim Maher and Lisa Frideborg Lloyd

We are threaded of memories of things that once were. It is this unique blueprint, inherited from our parents, which became more and more elaborate as we were growing up and becoming individuals – on different sides of the planet, in very different surroundings.
Jim grew up in Australia, Lisa came to age in Sweden, i was born to a country that meanwhile died. You would say, these people are threaded from different substance and their blueprints are too diverse for their memories to ever resonate with each other…
Yet nothing can be further from truth.
You see, there is that layer of archetypal remembrance where all the unique blueprints merge into one big echo of the universal human experience.
And, thus, albeit Jim and Lisa and myself grew up in different parts of the world, we came to age together and that’s the memories we share.
Here is Jim’s story:
“This is the kind of story that when I read I don’t want to finish. Nostalgia set in early while reading it, my mum used to wash her hair in the remainders of Dad’s home made beer, he had a big cauldron in the back shed that was always brewing with egg shells as well as other things floating along with the other ingredients that did not sink on the top of the liquid which was bubbling over the wood fire stove he had made. It was against the law in this country to make your own beer back then or any kind of alcohol),so we had to keep quiet and say nothing about it, mum did not drink it though she said it was the best shampoo, and dad always made sure there was plenty for her! Anyway those days are long gone, my dad died when I was 28 (1985) and mum died in the year 2000.
Thanks for those memories today Lena, I had really forgotten about my mum washing her hair with dad’s homemade beer.
Your story was like going to the fortune teller you wrote about and taking a trip ‘back’ in time (….”she could read the past too”) …to where I once lived. For myself as well… full of what was once for me just common… (long before ‘new age’ was even a phrase or a used terminology let alone a buzz or marketing word) more like just a way of life or practice amongst our elders…
Today your story of The Fortune Teller both bought a happy tear to my eye and also took me back in time for a while.
I want to thank both you and your story for being able to do that Lena.”

And here is Lisa’s: “Very enjoyable read. Made me feel nostalgic and want to visit… possibly because it reminded me of my own coffee grounds-reading grandmother… who, as it happens, was also fabulous at embroidery! Oh, how I wish I had learned more from her! Maybe one day I’ll be blessed with grandchildren… and maybe one of them will be a seer too…”

I am certain the children will indeed see and that they will take the things they’ve seen with them, to the better future.

Illustration: By Paolo Martinello , Universal Fantasy Tarot, published by Lo Scarabeo 2006 © Copyright Lo Scarabeo, All Rights Reserved

The Daughter of the Childless One

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in coming of age story

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Vaclav Jansa's Powder Gate


Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I was always alone, albeit i couldn’t know back then that the date of my birth, summed up and reduced to a single digit, equals to the position nine in procession of the Tarot Trumps, Major Arcanum, that held by the Hermit.
And it’s only in the first year of philology studies, that i’ll learn from etymological dictionary “Jak se bude jmenovat”, paní doktorky Miloslavy Knappové that my name could mean ‘a tower’… Could mean, because it was one of those shortened names that meant nothing per se.
My grandmother’s name was Embroiderers and she came from the people who were flag-bearers in the battles – her late husband did, that is. It’s only later on that i will learn the name she was given was some kind of code meant to protect her; from whom or what – i didn’t know. My mother’s name is Dawn and father’s – Dear one. His favorite sister was Darling and my mother’s sister was Firch Tree. Both of my cousins were named Hope, while father’s mother and father respectively were Dew and Rejoicing. My Basenji companion’s name was Bongor, his pedigree said, and albeit i didn’t know what it means – it did sound royal. Yet, my own name meant nothing. I could chose the root – Greek for ‘torch’- ἐλένη or ‘moon’- Σελήνη, or Aramaic Maghdela, place on the Sea of Galilee and literally-a tower. I preffered the latter because it suited me better.
I was quite tall, the tallest girl in class, i had my father’s black hair and very dark brown eyes, yet my mother’s pale white skin and gloomy facial expression – which made me look pretty much like a ghost… and that’s exactly how i felt, most of the time.
You see, Slav ideal of beauty is blond, glowing, with blue eyes, pink cheeks and it is bubbling, chatty and a coquette. I was none of those things.
No wonder i was drawn to the Powder Tower, i would spend hours observing it and i presumed that, could she speak, this born Goth would confine in me that she felt the same among those light-headed buildings surrounding her.
I didn’t know back then that the Powder Tower was a Gate to the city, the Gate where the Royal Mile – the traditional route of Czech kings – used to start; but i would soon learn there is a powder, albeit of another kind, that will come to my teenage salvation.
Czech would sometimes refer to make-up as to zázračná chemie, magic chemistry, and magic it was.
Soon i would become a skilled magician – i was mastering numerous alchemical processes and i presume even John Dee would approve my diligence and dedication.
The magical fields in which i excelled were many.
By Albification adepts would make the matter in the alchemical work become white – that i had mastered by the age of thirteen, having learned how to bleach my black hair in a way that it looks naturally blond. Of course, i hadn’t succeeded at first and had burned my hair badly during first couple of experiments but, with true apprentice’s spirit, i endured until the end… Until once at the Czech- German border the custom’s officer almost didn’t let me out of the country because i didn’t look anything like my picture in the passport.
Alchemical Coction – the cooking or heating of a substance at a moderate heat for an extended period – was a crucial skill to master; hair rollers were heated before they could produce that big hair so popular during 80ies; face was ‘steamed’ so the skin pores would be clean; hands and feet would be first kept immersed in hot water, so they could be adequately treated.
Coloration-tinging a substance by adding coloured tincture, ‘dessication’ -
removal of all the moisture in a substance, ‘foliation’ which made
the substance puff up in layers – all of these were necessary to achieve the wanted ‘Rarefaction’, which made the substance thin and airy.
Back then the only thing i wanted was to merge in somehow, so not to stand apart all of the time; if only i had known that at the end, result of this pseudo-alchemical process would be all that vitriol…

With time, loneliness became my modus vivendi. No siblings, no close friends – we were moving from country to country every couple of years, no extended family. There were other kids in the neighborhood – i had noticed them around, but some of them spoke Czechs and others – French, i didn’t speak any of the two.
There were some interesting serials and sitcoms on tv – or so they seemed, but i couldn’t understand a word of it.
So i resorted to books, it’s about that time that i started reading manically.

If, once upon a time, you were participating in Coronation procession of a Czech king, taking the traditional route – your next stop, after the Powder Gate, would be Municipal House or Obecni Dum.
To walk behind the king in the procession you had to be either a high-ranking clerical dignitary or a leading provincial aristocrat, if you were local – or a noted nobleman if you came from abroad.
So, while chances to show off in the procession were slim (albeit, if you lived in city’s center, you could always cheer the king from your own window), to become the next person to take up the royal throne and thus walk at the head of the procession – well, that was almost impossible, especially if you were… a woman.
Back in the day, there were salic and semi-salic laws of succession.
According to semi-salic law, the first-born person descending from the older line had the absolute preference and the male members had the preference to the females – women could start to rule only if there was no eligible male member. Like Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions, did. Some would say her rule did prove that women were better kept off the throne as Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina, the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma – happened to be the last ruler of the mighty House of Hubsburg.
Her father, Charles VI, in 1713 managed to get the great European powers to agree on Pragmatica Sanctio – the edict ensuring that the throne of the Archduchy of Austria could be inherited by a daughter, and died in 1740 with no male heirs.
During her forty years of reign, Maria Theresa promoted financial and educational reforms, commerce and agriculture, had reorganised Austria’s military, and at the same time had sixteen children by her cheating husband. Go figure.

And while Maria Theresa did have it tough, Salic law excluded women so they could not seize the throne even if they were the only living representatives of the existing dynasty under the sun.
And while i was not a princess, i did feel on my own skin some kind of Salic law’s evil replica.
You see, for Montenegrins, the daughters didn’t really count either – they couldn’t be listed on the family’s genealogical tree.
Thus if some – in the eyes of others – poor man was cursed to have only female off-springs he was considered childless. Even nowadays, second decade into the rushing 21st century, some elderly Montenegrin, a father of six, would claim he has a single child – his only son. The five daughters don’t count, you see.
Couple of years ago, in a bank, one of those pushy middle-aged women that you hate standing with in a line, regardless my obvious unwillingness, did manage to chat me up. I was standing in the long bank’s line in front of her, and while i was immersed into the book i was reading – she was trying hard to start a conversation; she was coughing meaningfully, and had pushed me and then apologized couple of times – stuff those obnoxious persons do when they are bored and on a lookout for a new victim. Local sub-genre of yenta or something. I try to avoid them by all means, because their only goal is to collect more material for gossiping with their equally obnoxious friends. She didn’t know me – i am often a target because they hadn’t seen me before in our small city and they are dying to know all about me. This is Montenegro, a country of 650.000 inhabitants, where at least half of the people are related to you (the other half for sure knows someone who knows someone whom you know or work with), so you can’t just tell them to bugger off. I did my best to ignore her, as from previous experiences i knew what was to follow, yet there is a line in our society that you don’t cross, unless you are ready to give up on your own reputation and, more so, make your family ‘lose face’.
Because that’s what would mean her eventual spreading of the word that ‘daughter of such and such was so rude, that she wouldn’t even speak to a poor old lady like herself – and that’s only because she, the daughter, grew up abroad and was never thought proper manners… but then, how could she possibly be – after all, her mother is a foreigner… poor father of hers, why did he merit such a miserable destiny?!’
And the latter would be said with a tongue in cheek, because Montenegrin yentas never forgive their compatriots who intermarried – you see, everyone has a daughter or a niece who never married only because those foreign sluts seduced decent Montenegrin men… (It’s not that their daughters and nieces were ugly and mean after them, so noone wanted them for their life.)
So, to avoid all of it inevitably reaching one’s family – one would give in and the interrogation would begin: “Whose are you?” That’s the way to play ‘Montenegrin geography’, the fastest bet for the yenta to locate you in the multiplicity of her inner maps.
I avoid direct answer, i don’t need this. “Where do you work” is the usual second question – that’s directed to eventual gain from the new acquaintanceship; you see, except the unmarried daughter, they usually have another one that desperately needs a job – who knows, maybe you are the godsent who will provide it, nevertheless the chances are the daughter is uneducated and lazy too (i mean, who has the time to study or work, when there is so much gossiping to do!)
I make myself clear that i am not the godsent in question. On question where i live, i answer very vaguely, something like “here and there” and when she asks whether i am married and have children i smile, look her straight into the eyes and say nothing. She is confused, i am not supposed to behave like that. That’s so rude! And she can’t even complain to her friends how absolutely rude i was because she hasn’t learned my name! I see it written on her face, that defeat, but she doesn’t surrender yet and repeats the question. At this point, still smiling, i answer the Jewish way, with a question:”Why are you asking?” Now i am afraid she is going to have a heart attack. “What do i mean by that?!” She doesn’t say it loudly, but again, it’s all over her face! She’s entitled to know! It’s her birthright after all! It’s her birthright to push her nose in thy neighbor business! And while i fully realize that it is indeed some sick way to care about others – which is, the evil sister of the proverbial love for thy neighbor, i am so tired of it all, so tired that i just turn my back on her without saying anything.
You see, i’ve been intimidated that way all my life and i grew very tired of it.
At that very moment the bank clerk calls my name and as i step forward, towards the counter, i feel the tapping on my shoulder. I know it’s the old witch, she had overheard my surname and had located me on the maps in her head; i have no intention of turning back, but she taps me even stronger as she yells out triumphantly:” i know who you are! You are the daughter of the childless one!” I’ve heard it before and i would have still ignored her, but she is now hitting me on the back and screaming:”We are realated!” The other people in the bank are staring at us. I face her and say calmly:”I don’t know you, leave me alone.” By that time a younger woman had joined her, i presume it’s her daughter as they are very much alike; the girl is blushing, she is embarrassed by the yenta’s behavior and apologizes to me. Meanwhile, Yenta herself is smiling proudly as if she just climbed to the top of the Mountain Everest, and in her small mind she probably did. You see, she outed me. I was misbehaving by not answering her questions and now that she outed my shame she could rest on the laurels of her hard won victory.
That’s the punishment bitches like me deserve for such a rude behavior towards poor old ladies who were just trying to be nice! Who was i to ignore her? A nobody! The daughter of the childless one! She obviously was from my father’s tribe – or was married into it, as she had known instantly who i was! What a shame! Seven centuries long line of “loza”, succession, going extinct because my father intermarried! It’s as if with his family background he couldn’t find a nice Montenegrin girl!
Now i must digress. Nowadays, it’s minority of Montenegrins – the same like the Orhtodox minority of religious Jews – who look exclusively for their own.
Back in the day, Montenegrins lived high in the mountains and Jews – in ghettos, so it’s not that there was much choice anyway and it’s not that either of the two people was considered a desirable marriage material for other than their own. It’s with time that both Jews and Montenegrins became desirable husbands, and for similar reasons, chances were they were handsome, chances were they would make it, chances were they’ll provide for their families and chances were they would be loyal to them until death sets them apart. Or so the word was.
So, the competition grew harsher and harsher as the choices grew larger – and who likes that? Certainly not the mother who has daughters to marry, preferably into the tribe.
I get it, i do, but – again – i am just very tired of it all.
While this thoughts run through my head, the girl elbows her mother who still doesn’t get it and asks her soto voce “What? What is it now?!”
The girl breaths in deeply and apologizes for her mother’s behavior. Now the mother looks confused and addressing the daughter says: “i didn’t say anything bad to her, her father is a nice man, we are all sorry he is childless…”
The line had stopped moving long ago, the silence in the bank is tensed and heavy. I slowly turn around. But, lo and behold, it’s not over yet.
Just seconds before i returned to my initial position – with my back to the yenta and this embarrassing situation, her daughter seizes me up quickly and asks:” You are pregnant, right?”
A year or so before that i had quit smoking after almost quarter a century, and, as a result, went from my usual size 10 to unacceptable for Montenegro size 14. The descendants of warriors tribes from the mountains, where there was never corn, fed scarcely on meat and some grass growing around their homes for centuries – they are genetically slim, you see.
I sigh heavily and say: No, i am not pregnant.
At this point my eyes meet the bank clerk’s. Her’s are filled with tears – she too has overheard the conversation. She shakes her head, as if telling me: don’t pay attention, it doesn’t matter. I know her, the clerk, she too is from my father’s tribe – more so – from the same fraternity which makes us some kind of extended cousins. She is a real lady, middle aged, yet very well kept, very stylish and very nice. Everyone who has errands to run in the bank tries to get to her counter – she works the fastest and is most kind of all. She understands, her destiny is even worse than mine – you see, her parents divorced, when she was still a toddler, some half a century ago when no-one divorced… that, in her words, made her almost a bastard. And she has two daughters of her own now and in Montenegro it’s still not easy to marry with such a family history. That she didn’t say, but i know it, you see, we all know everything. Her both daughters are beautiful after her and educated too, i just hope they will marry somewhere far away from this cursed mountains.
I see a colleague of hers standing up from the next counter and rushing out, her palm is covering her eyes so the clients wouldn’t see she is crying too… Albeit everyone knows she is and everyone, also, knows why.
There are many patterns of speech in our language that can, when needed, indicate that you are close with or related to some important person, without your explicitly saying so – in a society which primary modus vivendi is nepotism, the skillfulness in using those implications on a regular basis can not be stressed enough; especially if you are not close with or related to any important people who would care about your affairs.
Such was the case of one of the drivers with the State Protocol, where i worked. His situation was really bad, as he was approaching retirement and he still didn’t have a place of his own, his family still lived in a rented apartment. That’s after decades of driving around the hottest of the shots. I could not imagine to which extent his family despised him, he would say, because he wasn’t capable of getting them a place to live. What else needed to be said? But he would continue his eternal rant.
Not everyone would get a flat during their working years, there were dozens of rules who has the priority and yet, somehow, it was those with the connections that got them…

Or so he wanted me to see it. This guy was not one of them, of the lucky ones, and as his retirement was approaching – that was the deadline, after which the chances to get a home were none, he resorted to one of the oldest social tricks in existence – he started calling all the important people by their first names only.
Behind their back, of course. There were many newbies in the business, like myself, who, he thought, knew nothing and one could have gotten lucky and some old trick might have worked.
Like, he would mention five high ranking politicians by their first names only – that would indicate the closeness; then he would proceed to complaining of not having gotten the apartment; he would add also that it’s only his inborn shyness that prevented him from jumping on the numerous occasions to get one. Or even two.
That i still had a low, beginner’s rank in the Protocol – that he knew, what he didn’t know and was dying to learn was weather i am screwing someone important.
You see, i grew up to be somewhat pretty. He knew my father had retired long time ago and he knew i didn’t have any brothers. On the top of it, i was suspiciously single while over thirty – so, with no family so to say, how possibly could i get a job with Protocol, unless… You know what i mean.
Right, i graduated with honors, had masters and spoke five languages, but still… You know, it’s not that you get to work with the State Protocol just like that.
For sure i was screwing someone important he thought and that’s where his hopes were – after thousandth time that he drained me with his unbelievably sad, yet “true” story of the apartment, i could say to my hypothetical VIP lover that, for example, that night i wouldn’t make it out with him because i was too tired. Or too sad. Or something. Then the imaginary VIP lover of mine, who woudn’t get what he wanted, would get all concerned why i was so tired. Or sad. And then, maybe, being the nice girl that i was, i would tell him how sorry i felt for the “homeless” driver and how i couldn’t possibly engage into some decadent flesh-enjoying while such nice people suffered. In driver’s wildest dreams i would probably deny the VIP lover any favors of the kind – until that poor’s man situation wasn’t solved and both his (lover’s) and my consciousness was clear.
And he was right that i was a nice girl, but i wasn’t stupid. And there was no VIP lover, i had worked my ass off to get where i was. And i knew the driver was a crook, and i knew he made money on fake petrol invoices and forged hotel bills, everyone knew. Also, everyone knew he had built himself a house in a nice area and rented it, his living in a rented apartment was a game, to get an apartment which he didn’t have the right to. You see, people from remote areas had priority because they didn’t have where to live – the driver was from the city and had his father’s house too. But, he wanted more, so he tried to get ahead and over-ran his colleagues with big families and no roof above their heads. He even sued couple of them, with no result though. His own children were grown up and lived separately, that took off the points he needed so badly for the apartment. And also, as it’s already being said, everyone knows everything here, and more or less everyone hated him. But in Montenegro you don’t say these things openly – you see, if you have a conflict with someone, even if they are not related to or close with anyone important, they still belong to a tribe, some tribe, and then you are at war with the whole tribe. Who needs that? So, all the newbies, me included, were listening to his rants, without ever saying a word, but without a slightest intention to help him in any way.
I went even further, i didn’t allow him to address those important people by their first names – after all, it was forbidden by the rules of service. Not that anyone really obliged to it, but indeed it was a rule and that was my little revenge on him for all his venting i had to listen day after day. He would say a nickname, and i would just stare at him and repeatedly ask whom he had in mind until he said the VIP’s full name, surname, rank and academic title too. That was driving him crazy, as those were too long to remember. But i made him to.
One of the chiefs there had particularly long name which everyone abbreviated. And he was an Ambassador too, which meant His Excellency had to be added before it. In addition to the very long name, the surname was rare and even harder to remember.
Thus it was a particular pleasure for me – when the chauffeur from hell was appointed to drive the Ambassador – to make him address His Excellency as it was protocolary due. But he couldn’t, i saw it that he can’t remember even His Excellency’s first name. He was stuck. I threatened i’ll send him to disciplinary commission if he referred to this high state official by nickname, while on duty and without Excellency’s explicit permission. His face turned purple as he was seizing me up with his tiny, watery eyes – as if to decide whether in fact i would send him to disciplinary commission. You see, i was in my right to do so – at least on paper. He needed to call the head of driving center, his immediate superior, an elderly, respected policeman and report that he was assigned to … the person whose name he had forgotten. And i was standing there, above his head and i had threatening look on my face that said i was not kidding. So, he had dialed the number of his immediate superior and, while looking at me triumphantly and breathing out the sigh of relief – which clearly said he thought of a solution to this protocolary Gordian knot – he yelled into the receiver:”I am appointed to the childless one!”
You see, His Excellency didn’t have any children of his own, not even daughters. The bank clerk who rushed out from the counter next to my extended cousin’s following the incident with the yenta; the sophisticated, beautiful lady who had covered her eyes with her palm so no one would see her tears – that woman was this very Excellency’s spouse of thirty years.

When occasion presented itself, i had asked my father who could be that obnoxious woman, that yenta from the bank. And albeit i hadn’t learned her name, it took my father less than a minute to locate the yenta on the Montenegrin map of who is who inside his head.
By that time i knew my father so well that you could say i was reading his mind. By that time i knew my compatriots’ way of thinking so well, that you could say i could read their minds. And i was an empath too, since birth, so probably i was indeed reading a little.
After i had told him the story of the yenta from the bank, my father gave me one of those looks. Those looks would last only few moments, but with my father’s life experience and, more so, with the work experience he had accumulated as a high ranking intelligence officer – that’s all he needed to answer the questions which had to be answered before the judgement was pronounced.
Routinely, he would check in his mind whether the testimony was credible – whether the witness was sober, sane and emotionally stable. It seemed he checked all three quickly, because he diverted his gaze elsewhere, i knew he decided for himself that i was quite capable of making a sound judgement of a situation.
The next group of questions in his head needed to answer my motivation – and that’s where i knew he would be on a shaky ground. Now he was thinking to himself why i was bringing this up in the first place. Mine being hurt was not an answer. You see, feelings didn’t really count either – that was, like, a daughter’s thing to have. There must be something else, some better reason than that, maybe the yenta was an agent provocateur, sent on a mission by some foreign enemy of our state… And those were many. He is tad paranoid, my father, you see – and – he sort of dismisses that he has a daughter, because he didn’t raise me as one; for all he knew, he had raised me as a son.
Then he would quickly calculate the probability of yenta’s being a foe’s intelligence officer; then he would remember i quit working for protocol long time ago and that the cold war officially was over. Then, a sad shadow would nest on his face, but only briefly, as he would remember that despite all, i was nothing but a girl.
See, my father is a Gemini too, like myself, and his mind too runs, as they say, over hundred miles per hour, albeit – when it’s about me – mostly in the wrong direction.
He cuts short my thoughts with an outburst of laughter.”Oh, i know who that was” – he had located the yenta, and he continues -”that lowlife!” He waves his hand, dismissing the incident as unimportant.
Right, it was obvious that the bank yenta didn’t have class.
But, she was still a member of the tribe into which he was born and which he had betrayed twofold – he had intermarried and he failed to produce sons.
That did matter, and he knew that i knew, and i knew he was trying to comfort me in the only way he knew – by laughing it off – and we both knew that himself he was inconsolable.
Copyright©20012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

http://www.praguecityline.com/royal-route

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaclav_Jansa_-_Prasna_brana,_Mocker.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alch-pro.html
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/Montenegro/Montenegro.htm

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